in reply to Re: Best way to extract RE backreferences
in thread Best way to extract RE backreferences

Strictly speaking the parens around the match itself aren't necessary; it's already in list context. 

% perl -le '$_="abcde";my($z,$y,$x)=/(b)(c)(d)/;print "$x$y$z"'
dcb

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However if you wanted to save only a subset of the saved subexpressions, the ()'s around the match will let you use brackets to get a slice (but then you might be better off using non-capturing parens instead).

my( $y, $x ) = (/(b)(c)(d)/)[1,2];

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Re: Re: Re: Best way to extract RE backreferences
by dragonchild (Archbishop) on Feb 05, 2003 at 21:11 UTC
    However if you wanted to save only a subset of the saved subexpressions, the ()'s around the match will let you use brackets to get a slice (but then you might be better off using non-capturing parens instead).

    <nit>Maybe. You might have a large parsing regex that's been compiled with /o and you want the 3rd through 9th columns of 12 columns.</nit>

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[reply]
      Your objection is valid but you shouldn't be using /o anymore. We have qr() now.

      Makeshifts last the longest.

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